This week during our problem-solving block, students worked in teams based on their grade level to take on three puzzles: "The Human Knot," "The Cross-Arm Knot" and "Everybody Up!" We revisited the metaphor of the Learning Pit and encouraged each other to try many different approaches to each puzzle until it was solved. Afterward, we discussed which qualities and skills of their groups were most helpful in solving the puzzles and which qualities of their groups produced the greatest challenges.
During Integrated Inquiry, we filled out person interest surveys to help us determine which topics we might like to research and investigate during II in future weeks. Questions on the survey asked about students' personal preferences and opinions about school, sports, the arts, curiosities and more! Next week, we will try to turn some of these interests into inquiry questions and then start exploring!
As we continued our work on our Personalized Learning Plans (PLPs), we shifted our focus from personal strengths and challenges to core values. We took some time to discuss what "core values" means: the qualities that we believe are most important for us and others to possess. Then, we read through a long list of potential core values and each of us chose the five that were most important to us. Our next step was to decide whether each core value was ethical (meant to benefit the good of all people) or non-ethical (meant to benefit ourselves). We discussed that both types of values are important, but it is a good idea to have balance between them. Next week, we will take time to add our choices to our PLP websites and then describe why we chose each of the values.